Team News Riveting
Kolkata, November 13
The leader of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), Saifuddin Laskar was shot dead by unidentified miscreants in Bamangachhi of Joynagar in state’s South 24 Parganas on Monday morning.
According to police sources, five motorcycle-borne assailants pumped a bullet in his back. Laskar, the local area president of the ruling TMC, was on his way to a local mosque to pray at around 5 am on Monday when he was attacked. He died before reaching hospital. While the victim’s wife is the local gram panchayat pradhan, Laskar himself was a panchayat member of Bamangachhi.
Following the shootout, villagers and local TMC workers allegedly nabbed two of the five attackers and brutally thrashed them. Police said while one of the two suspected assailants succumbed to his injuries from mob fury, the second person identified as Saharul Sheikh, a resident of neighbourhood Usti area, was rescued by police and taken into custody.
The lynching took place some 500 metres from the site of the shootout, eyewitnesses claimed.
The TMC supporters also set ablaze about 20 houses belonging to CPI-M supporters right before police’s eyes who allegedly did little to stop the arsonists, eye witnesses said. At around 7 am, a mob of some 200-300 people attacked the locality of Doluakhaki Naskar Para, some five kilometers away from where Laskar was shot, and carried out a rampage that lasted for nearly four hours. Alleging CPI-M supporters were behind Laskar’s murder, the miscreants set on fire the houses belonging to CPI-M supporters and workers forcing all male members to flee the village.
The women and children who stayed behind too weren’t spared the ire of the TMC raiders who too were allegedly beaten up. The victims alleged that the attackers, armed with crude bombs and sharp weapons, looted valuables and ransacked belongings before dousing the dwellings with petrol and torching them. The mob reportedly also threatened to return after sundown for another round of assault, villagers said.
A large contingent of police and Rapid Action Force personnel were deputed in the area which continued to simmer in tension.
